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Assessment Tools

Students often find that discussing and evaluating their interests with a career counselor helps to achieve the personal understanding that forms the basis for establishing career goals. Several CCS offices on campus have career counselors available to work with you.

Your First Appointment

In your initial appointment you will be asked to describe your concerns and what you hope to gain from counseling. You and the counselor will decide whether our services are the best campus resource for resolving your concerns. If appropriate, you will be referred to another office on campus or you may decide to continue your counseling here.

Tools for Assessing Interests, Skills, Values, and Personal Strengths

Your career counselor will help you define your concerns, sort out your feelings, and help you to strategize on a plan to help you find your own answers. Based on your initial discussion, the counselor may recommend a career assessment instrument to help provide some additional clarifying information about your values, interests, skills, and personal strengths—all important areas you will need to understand and articulate in order to make sound career decisions. Because each student's situation is unique, the career counselor will help you to select the assessment that is right for you. Assessments cannot tell you exactly what you should do, but they can offer a new perspective on career concerns that can be very helpful in the career planning and decision making process.

Below are a few examples of some of the assessments offered to assess the areas of interests, values, skills, and personal strengths. However, not all career counselors on campus offer all of these assessments, so schedule an appointment at your college career office or Barnes Hall to learn more:

Strong Interest Inventory measures your interests—not your abilities—and takes twenty to thirty minutes to complete online. The results are scored and sent to the requesting counselor for interpretation in a follow-up appointment.

Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) provides a useful measure of temperament by looking at eight personality preferences that all people use at different times. As with the Strong, the results are sent to your counselor for interpretation and discussion through a follow-up appointment.

SKILLSCAN is a card sort designed to help you determine what skills you possess which you can use in communicating your skillset to a potential employer. You can complete this exercise in an hour appointment with the counselor in the office.

Clifton StrengthsFinder is an online personality assessment that measures the presence of talents in 34 themes that relate to the way we naturally think, feel, and behave as unique individuals. Upon completing the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment, respondents receive a report displaying their top five (most dominant) themes. A follow-up appointment is scheduled with the counselor to interpret the results and discuss how to effectively utilize this information in your career exploration and planning.

Career Counselors

The following counselors are available to assist you with career assessment: